Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/109

 HISTOliY OF (.iOODHUE COUNTY 75 Shingauba Wassa, Gitche Gaubow,.Wis Coup, or "Sugar," and a * number of sub-chiefs and principal men. In 1830, a second treaty with the Northwest Indian tribes was held at Prairie du Chien. Delegates were present from four bands of the Sioux, the Medawakantons, the Wapakootas, the Wahpatons and the Sissetons, and also from the Sacs, the Foxes and Iowas, and even from the Omahas, Otoes and Missouris, the homes of the last three tribes being on the Missouri river. At this treaty the Indian tribes represented ceded all of their claims to the land in western Iowa, northwestern Missouri, and especially the country of the Des Moines river valley. The lower bands bad a special article inserted in the treaty for the benefit of their half-blood relatives : "The Sioux bands in council have earnestly solicited that they might have permission to bestow upon the half-breeds of their nation the tract of land within the following limits, to-wit : Beginning at a place called the Barn, below and near the village of the Red Wing chief, and running back fifteen miles; thence, in a parallel line, with Lake Pepin and the Mississippi river about thirty-two miles, to a point opposite Beef, en* O'Boeuf, river, thence fifteen miles to the Grand Encampment, opposite the river aforesaid, the United States agree to suffer said half breeds to occupy said tract of country, they holding by the same title, and in the same manner that other Indian titles are held." Certificates, or "script," were issued to many half-breeds, and there was much speculation in them, and litigation over them, in subsequent years, a matter of which will be treated later in this history. The Sioux also ceded a tract of land twenty miles wide along the northern boundary of Iowa from the Mississippi to the Des Moines, the consideration for which was $2,000 in cash and $12,000 in merchandise. Iron Cloud, of the Red AVing village, was among the signers of this treaty. In the spring of 1837, Agent Taliaferro, who had in charge much of the early negotiation between the Indians and the United States, was instructed to organize an authoritative and reliable delegation of the lower bands of Sioux, to proceed to Washington and make a treaty ceding the lands claimed by them in what are now Wisconsin and Minnesota. These lands were the islands in the Mississippi and a strip of land of a few miles, varying in width from the mouth of the Broad Axe to the mouth of the "Watab. The expedition as it started from Fort Snelling consisted of a number of Indian chiefs and head men, and several whites. At Red Wing the boat stopped to take on Wacoota and his head soldier; and at Winona, Wabasha and Thin Face joined the expedition. The treaty was concluded and signed Septem- ber 29 by Joel R. Poinsett, then secretary of war. For some